


case no. 018110421: a ghost story

by Marianne_Dashwood



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Ghosts, I made a TMA OC and no one can stop me, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Statement Fic, but no actual 160 spoilers, post-160, this is post-160 because there were some tapes hanging around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 23:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21310117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marianne_Dashwood/pseuds/Marianne_Dashwood
Summary: It was the first tape that Jon had picked out of the box, too hungry not to look anymore. Martin listened to it first, but that still didn't prepare him for what he would hear.orStatement of Ophelia ‘Lia’ Bouchard, Research Assistant, regarding her brother and the manner of her death. Statement recorded directly by subject, date unknown, circa 2018.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	case no. 018110421: a ghost story

**Author's Note:**

> I made a TMA OC because I wanted too and no one can stop me. If you liked Lia, come yell at me about her at @MJDashwood on twitter, or marianne-dash-wood on tumblr. I promise I write actual canon compliant stuff. thank you for taking a chance on this one!
> 
> edit 04/01/2020 - did some much needed edits! Major one - changed the name to Ophelia (Lia)

_ Statement of Ophelia ‘Lia’ Bouchard, Research Assistant, regarding her brother and the manner of her death. Statement recorded directly by subject, date unknown, circa 2018. _

_ Statement begins._

_[CLICK]_

I was murdered 22 years ago. For all the parts of me that fade and skirt around my mind, this is the fact that eludes me the most. Even saying it aloud now makes my consciousness tear and fray like the sleeves of an old jumper. I've not been conscious for most of it. At least, I don't think so. Like I said, my mind is... Fractured. If I don't think about my life, and afterlife, then I can manifest, appear almost normal; besides cold skin and a pale complexion. But I know you don't want that version of me. She has no information that is of use to you. So, please forgive me for my winding tattered mind. I shall try to keep myself together. 

I died in the bowels of this institute. I am not the first to die here, and I certainly shall not be the last. Unlike others, I have been… tied to this place. When I think I am alive, my inability to leave the Archive is a fact that my memory is able to dismiss. It is amazing what the human mind can ignore in order to preserve its sense of normality. Even when things went from bad to worse, it was completely antithetical to me to consider leaving. Something I think you know all too well. Something more powerful than loyalty to the institute was holding me back, keeping me from my peace. 

My brother… I know you want to know about my brother. It is why you are asking, after all. But please understand, who you believe you know is not my brother. I know that as clearly as I know that I will never leave this place. I shall try to explain. He was almost ten years my senior when I was born, and he wants a companion almost as much as our parents did not want a second child. I think he was the first person I disappointed, being a babe in arms when he expected a playmate. So, we were never that close, particularly after it was clear that even though I was unwanted, he was a disappointment. In our parents' eyes, that was far worse. 

Even so, we were the others only solace in that huge, horribly empty home. What sustained us for so many years were ghost stories, and I believe that is the only reason that the Lonely did not claim us then and there. I know that must sound cliche but, when I think of my brother, it is all I remember. I remember sitting in his bedroom, lit by candle light, his lanky teenage frame that was so despondent in front of our parents, brought to life by tales of dread and horror. His stupid, spotty face whipering tales of grey ladies, headless horseman and bloody muders. He would try and scare me, as only a big brother can, and sometimes he scared me so much with his tales that I wouldn’t sleep for weeks, not that I would ever tell him that. But he was never… horrifying. The tales scared me, but he never did. He was my big brother, and he would keep me safe from the monsters in the dark. It would be in those moments where he would promise that we would one day leave this loveless place, together, and go somewhere our parents could not touch us. 

Of course, ghost stories couldn't sustain us forever. I found solace in study and learning. He found his in unsavoury characters and… herbal remedies. And as he grew older, his promises faded into a cloud of smoke, and booze and arguments. Our father paid for a place at Christchurch, and I suspect he also paid to allow him to graduate at all, because he certainly didn’t seem to do any studying. Either way the moment he could have gotten out of there, he did. He left me. And, I cannot say I don’t blame him, but I don't think I ever forgave him either, for leaving me alone in that cold empty house, devoid of any kind of affection. 

I’m pretty sure our father pulled some more strings for him to even get a job at the Institute. It was a small job, but it would do for the family disappointment. I, on the other hand, was expected to succeed where my brother had failed. However, even a thin link to the Institute ignited my imagination and my intrigue. Once he handed me a statement, a real statement, just so I could see the kind of ‘weird shit’, as he put it, that he had to file. The moment he did that, it was all over. You can imagine my parents disappointment when I graduated with a first in Literature with a specialisation in folk and paranormal tales, and immediately took a job at the Institute. 

I suppose it's fair to say that I didn’t spend much time with my brother even though we both now worked in the same building. He had a bit of a reputation, shall we say, and so I avoided using my surname in the Institute to keep others unaware of our connection. Besides, my work as a researcher was far too absorbing to truly pay attention to my brother and his dealings with James Wright. I craved knowledge. It was almost an addiction, that thrill of learning, of discovery, that I hadn’t felt since those ghost stories in the dark. I suspect that is why… anyway. For later. I’m sure you, of all people, understand that hunger. Even though I was never told fully about the Beholding the entire time I have worked here, I was probably one of their most faithful and devoted followers. Another fear, one that had followed me from my childhood had it’s hooks in me as well, however. The Lonely’s fog was comforting. I had no friends, and when my one serious relationship failed, through my own negligence, all I had was my work. Sometimes I think that the only thing holding me to humanity at that time was my brother, as tenuous as that connection was. Perhaps this is why it was so easy for Jonah to do what he did. 

I knew that something was wrong. I knew that Wright had no reason to target my brother, to take him out to expensive resturants and dress him from head to toe in clothes that fit perfectly but did not look right on my brother. I knew something was not right. And I did nothing. Well, not nothing. I investigated, in a way that I thought was extensive. I found nothing on James Wright, no reason he should be intrested in my brother. When I found out that the Lukas' were also involved, and my questions became too obvious, I was told in no uncertain terms to cease my meddling. For my own safety, I understand now, though I did not then. I wish I could tell her that I understand, why she did what she did, why she hid who she was from me, I...

I... I, I'm...

[STATIC]

I'm sorry. This is where my memory starts to fray, slightly. It is so hard to think, to formulate with this in the forefront of my mind. I remember the woman who told me that Wright was dead. I remember how incredlous she looked when she told me that my brother, my stupid, podhead brother, was now the head of the Institute. I didn’t believe it, not in that moment. I even ran to his new office to see for myself, not that I remember much of those panicked minutes spent sprinting through those winding, confusing corridors. I ran, and ended up on a crash course to collide with him just as he was closing the door to leave. 

I don’t know what caused the dread of unfamiliarity to settle in my stomach. Perhaps it was the newly confident position that he held, towering above me even though I had an inch over him in height. Perhaps in the way his lips curled when he saw me, in a calculated fashion that I had never seen on my brother before. Or, perhaps it was his eyes. We had both inherited our mothers eyes’, a rich hazel the colour of melted chocolate and old leather cases. But when I looked at him, his cold eyes stared into mine, and they were an icy blue. They were alive, I could see them examining me with an intelligence my brother had never possessed. But there was a glazed look to them, a shine that reminded me of corpses and dead things. 

Like I said, the mind can make up explanations for anything. I could have fooled myself that his confidence was a perk of the new position, that it had allowed me to exercise his intelligence in a way he could not before. Even his eyes, I could dismiss as a trick of the light. But when he spoke, he made his first and last mistake.

You see, it was my brother who gave me my nickname. He had never called me anything else, his whole life. This man with unfamiliar eyes looked down on me and called me _Ophelia_, savouring the word as if it gave him infinite pleasure. Like he never had to worry about words again in his life.

At first, I was terrified that it was the Stranger. That my brother had been replaced the night before, and I could not get the idea of this creature tearing my brother apart and wearing a skin that wasn’t his own out of my head. But some polaroids from my childhood disproved this; he looked the same, the same as he had always done, bar his eyes and personality, but no one, except myself, knew him well enough to notice either in much detail. I soaked up any knowledge I could about what might have happened to him. I don’t know how he found out that my investigations had not stopped, but he must have known that I wasn’t fooled. 

I don’t like to think about what happened after that. Honestly, what he did comes more in flashes and spurts even now as I force myself to relive it. I believe you may be better to say what happened to me. Afterall, you found my body. I only lived it, and it was, still is, hazy. So broken it is trying to recall a TV show covered in static. I think I confronted him. His smile in the face of my righteous anger, in my demands for whatever it was to release my brother. 

I remember he asked me, simply, “Why?”

Then the next thing I know I have a knife in my stomach. I suppose it could have been worse. A clean cut through skin and tissue and veins, deep enough for me to bleed out quickly in the tunnels underneath the Institute, was better than the fate he gave to Gertrude, and certainly better than the one he gave to Leitner. 

The pain, at the time, was indescribable. I couldn’t even scream, as he stood over me, watching me gasp for air, begging for his help. The cold stone was the last thing I felt, and his dead-alive eyes were the things I saw before I faded. 

Have you ever been completely blackout drunk? I mean, falling over, passing out for a few seconds and waking somewhere new, words just noises in your mouth and you can’t feel your limbs? That is what it is like to be dead. I floated in this hazy drunk feeling for so long, not even conscious enough to be aware that I was floating. Pulling my consciousness back together was excruciating. I was broken, scattered leaves on the wind, like I was a tree trying to pull itself back into spring blossoms. It took so long to have so much as a thought, to feel again.

I understand now, why ghosts are sometimes thought of as echoes of the past. For so long, all I could recall were my last moments of fear and anger and pain. I did not know who I was. I did not know who had killed me, or what. The information was lost, but the emotion remained. I assure you, my hauntings were all but intentional. I forced myself back onto the familiar physical plane, but only because I so desperately wanted safety. The more I manifested, the more I felt. And the more I felt, the more of my rational mind I lost to the quiet emptiness of earth. I was so angry, then. Not just angry, but I was anger itself. I was pure emotion, that was all I was. I could not touch him, safe up in his office, protected by our patron in the body of my brother. How can you fight against something that knows everything? Well, perhaps not everything, but enough to try and thwart any and all attempts to harm him. Not that was particularly hard, palans born from pure emotion wouldn’t have been up to my usual calibre. 

I wandered endlessly in my prison of books and files and wood, and there was no escape for my anger and I. My fear, festered like a rot in the tunnels, by anger and pain spread through this place like cobwebs and the more I bound myself to this place in death, the more it bound itself to me. 

I don't hate him. Even as my body decayed, even as m spirit lost more and more of myself, I cannot hate him. He pulled me back together. I don’t know how - I wish I did, I wish that I knew whether it was my brother saying me or the monster wearing his skin. Like glue on broken china, or tape on a torn statement, he took, pulled, dragged one part of me at a time, parts of me even though I had forgotten about, and put me back together. He allowed me to be almost human. My heart would never beat. Breathing was not a reflex, but a habit. I couldn't leave the Institute, but I would wonder if it’s corridors and read and learn and forget. I could work again. But, like the broken china, or the torn statement, there will always be something missing. Scars, whether you can see them or not. The written word is lost to all but memory; such as I have been lost. 

The experience, the memory of my death was lost in regaining of physical presence. I could touch, speak, think again, and the price for that was my memory. My statement. I suppose this is it now, Archivist. I will never be human again, but perhaps after this, I will be able to think clearly, my life and death coexisting in my mind as they never have. I know this will bring neither of us rest. In dreams, you will walk with me in silent hallways, scream into the nothing of death, watch my own flesh and blood gut me like a pig for daring to cross him. I cannot rest until I find my brother. I do not dream, but the nightmares come all the same.

My brother, in the bowels of this Institute, scared and alone. My poor, stupid, foolish brother, offered as a sacrifice to some uncarng, all seeing eye. Do you think he was still alive, Archivist? When they strapped him down and tore out his eyes, was he still breathing, still thinking, still feeling every second of what they did to him? I like to think he fought them. Tried to hold onto some sense of himself, until the light died in his eyes and they weren’t his eyes anymore. But in reality, I knew my brother. I don’t think he did. He had already lost the fight in him a long time ago. I was too absorbed in my hunt, my hunger for knowledge and secrets to notice, not until it was far too late. 

I know you want to know whether you can stop him. I honestly have no idea. I’m sorry, I know it's not what you wanted bt, even an avatar of the End cannot give you the knowledge you seek. I only wish to save my brother. After everything, that's all I am. A wish. Whether that is my wish or the remnants of my brother begging one of the entities on my behalf, I don't know. I am made only of memories and stories and wishes. And yes, I am aware of the irony of that statement. Allow me to be so for the little time I have left to be wholly fully me. I want so many things, Archivist, do you know what it is like to want, even though you are dead and gone?

I want to live again. I want to feel the sun and the rain and feel the electricity in the air before the storm. I want to throw a snowball and warm myself by the fire in a home that isn’t here. I want to be me, the good and the bad and everything in between, not just the parts that keep me functional and working for this Institute. I want my brother back. I ache for him, so desperately and so longingly, I feel that sometimes I am only made of grief. But there must me something ting to this place. Which means there must be something of my brother left. There must be. There has to be. 

I swore that I’ll find you. Whatever I forget, whatever breaks me apart and rebuilds me, I will always come for you. We promised, remember? We are going to leave this place together, or not at all. I’m coming, Eli. Wait for me. 

[CLICK]

_ Statement ends. _

_ It seems that this tape was left for us. For me. I don’t know when it was recorded or even how it ended up in Basira’s package. But recorded it has been, and now, I have taken her statement. _

_ I didn’t even know Elias had a sister, but some digging proves the truthfulness in this statement. Ophelia Bouchard did, in fact, work for the Institute between the years of 1990 to 1996, where she disappeared from the public after the appointment of her brother. No missing person’s report was ever filed, as both of the Bouchard parents were dead by 1996, but the few people we were able to locate and contact, remembered that she had supposedly quit and cancelled her lease at her flat. There were a couple of witnesses who reported a woman named Hannah or Hanna asking about her a few months later, but we have been unable to follow up on this, given things being as they are. This may be the mysterious 'her' she mentions in the statement, but without Ms Bouchard herself, we cannot confirm this._

_ At least we now know exactly whose corpse was lying on the floor of the Panopticon. Much of the body was decayed, but it was undeniably that of a woman. Ms Bouchard. I can only hope that she was able to receive a proper burial before, well, before everything. _

_ From other staff statements of the time, they have revealed little else as to her nature that is not stated here. She didn’t use her full name, had few friends and was entirely dedicated to her work. The last recorded corporeal sighting of her that we have been able to verify is November 2018, hence the estimation of the statement date. Her so called 'hauntings' stopped around 2002, which was the last recorded incidence of a presence being felt in the Archives. I must say, when I started, I dismissed the rumours of a ghost haunting the Institute as being nothing more than a myth. It seems that there is more truth to that myth that I originally suspected. _

_ Martin remembers her, that’s perhaps the worst part. He didn’t notice a single thing about her out of the ordinary when they worked together in Research. Perhaps a little reserved and pale, but that is not uncommon for assistants, even before… Well._

_ This, unfortunately, does not give us any more information about our opponent that we really had before, apart from giving us more of an idea about the real Elias. Ms Bouchard hypotheses that her brother still retains some consciousness, but I am not inclined to agree. If the real Elias is still… alive, I dare not imagine what his life has been like the past two decades. Certainly, he would not be in any state to aid us in taking down Jonah Magnus, if that is even possible. _ _However, if Ms Bouchard is still able to manifest at the Institute, she may be able to help us. It is the only reason I can come up with in regards to why this tape was included in the box Basira sent. Perhaps she meant to warn us. A little too late now. But if this tape proves anything, it’s that, maybe, we are not as alone as we thought. _

_ End recording. _

[CLICK]


End file.
